MyFalcon Intranet. Backgrounds. Goals

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1 MyFalcon Intranet Intranet Project Backgrounds Falcon-Software offers a unique combination of e-business strategy, creative web design and application expertise when developing website solutions for their clientele. Falcon-Software was founded in 1993, with the mission to integrate ebusiness strategies with creative design and development technology, while delivering their clients projects on-time, on-budget and exceeding project stakeholder s expectations. Falcon-Software has regional offices across North America including Seattle, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Toronto, with its corporate headquarters located in Victoria, British Columbia. Their clientele comes from a variety of markets including healthcare, entertainment, tourism, manufacturing, retail, government, education, technology, finance and various non-profit sectors. Industry IT and Marketing Partner Falcon-Software Company, Inc. Two Union Square, Suite 4200 Seattle, WA USA Gary Eisenstein President & Founder gary@falconefx.com USA/Canada Local Goals Falcon- Software Goals To manage on-going projects and internal staff responsibilities efficiently and effectively, it was crucial that Falcon-Software develop a robust Intranet (MyFalcon). Initial high-level goals included: Increasing internal networking, Improving communication and organization of day-to-day and long-term activities, Providing an internal repository for client and project information, Creating task and role-specific documentation, and Delivering additional custom tools to support the diverse roles within the company.

2 After receiving feedback from all stakeholders, the following list of specific requirements was created: 1. A central, secure location to interact and share information about client projects, 2. Integrated client data (client and project numbers) from their billing management databases into the client project repository, 3. Event calendar displaying company events, 4. Employee vacations/out of office scheduling, 5. An easy access (single sign-on) system using Active Directory, 6. An interactive community to share knowledge and general day-to-day happenings such as There are cookies in the kitchen, help yourself! using the Kentico Blog and Forum, 7. A scheduling tool for project and account managers to task production staff with their daily/weekly/upcoming project assignments and to report when tasks are completed, 8. Contact directories for employees and development partners, 9. Repositories of information for specific job functions (Information Technology, Project Management, Human Resources, Design, Development, Accounting, and Sales), 10. A reporting tool integrating their project management software (Easy Projects) with invoice details, combining to create a process for tracking billings. Challenges & Solutions Challenges Specific to the General Build of the Intranet We experienced two key challenges specifically related to the architectural requirements for MyFalcon: 1. Requirement Use one template for multiple intranet page layouts in order to allow for adding different web parts to different layouts without affecting the template. a. Challenge Typically, a template is built with one specific format in mind and the built-in Kentico templates weren t intended for this. b. Solution Using the built-in Intranet template as a base, an html template was created that would auto-adjust the layout using floating containers and widths based on percentage instead of pixels. This allowed additional web parts to be added to the page as needed.

3 2. Requirement The calendar must be capable of displaying different types of events occurring on the same day, with shading to categorize them (corporate holidays, personal holidays, staff events). a. Challenge The default calendar display allows for one line of text only. b. Solution The styling was adjusted to encompass as many lines as needed and to ensure every type of calendar item was color-coded to distinguish the different event types. Challenges Specific to the Integration of 3rd Party Software Easy Projects (EP) The purpose of integrating Falcon s project management software into MyFalcon was two-fold: 1. Have client IDs and project numbers populate the intranet client repository automatically from Easy Projects, and 2. Have billings recorded in Easy Projects populate the intranet to: a. Track them through the billing process, and b. Flag subsequent changes to the billings made in EP. During the course of this integration, the following challenges to specific requirements were experienced and the below corresponding solutions were used to overcome them: 1. Requirement When a new client has entered into MyFalcon, an EP client number is required. Vice-versa, when a client is added to EP, the corresponding client record in MyFalcon is required. a. Challenge Using the built-in Kentico Import Tool was not a viable solution as it was necessary to call an API which the tool does not support. b. Solution The data could only be pulled by calling the Easy Projects API. A custom import using a Windows scheduled service that calls the EP API to retrieve the data and then imports and stores it in Kentico was implemented. After import, all updated client IDs are available in Kentico. Whenever a user modifies client data in MyFalcon, the EP API is called to update the client data in EP. This way, both systems (Kentico, EP) are kept in sync. With the import previously described, they update Kentico from EP, and with the API call, they update EP from Kentico.

4 2. Requirement Tie billings recorded in Easy Projects to the invoice number generated in SAGE (accounting software), and flag subsequent changes made to the EP billings. Results a. Challenge No matching variables between SAGE and Easy Projects could be extracted and matched programmatically. i. Solution Import information from EP into MyFalcon and add a field to the new records for manual data entry of the invoice number. This was achieved by replicating the EP data into Kentico (in custom tables) and adding an additional column for the invoice number to those tables. b. Challenge EP is unable to recognize if/when the invoice number is present, and therefore if records were modified in EP (date, time, task, description), there was no way to make a comparison of the data to determine if any further action was required (invoice modification). i. Solution Using blank/not-blank as a status on the MyFalcon invoice number field. If not-blank, the EP API is called whenever a user submits a data change to existing records for the following fields (Date, Time, Task ID and Description). c. Challenge When working on MyFalcon or in EP, it was necessary to ensure that the most up-to-date data was being used. i. Solution Developed a custom scheduled task that reads all the data from EP and updates in Kentico every 2 hours and can also be run on an as-needed basis. MyFalcon has proven to be a great internal asset for both planning and executing project work, creating a community among Falcon employees, as well as a great internal resource for all. There have been noted increases in collaboration, coordination and the overall effectiveness of the company. Client satisfaction has also increased as having client details from Easy Projects integrated directly into MyFalcon has increased data-access efficiency for front-line personnel.

5 Other benefits to having a robust intranet include: Since Falcon-Software has employees in different locations, it has significantly helped join the business together and foster increased cooperation among employees as well as to develop consistent and more complex internal processes, Internal communications are fewer since all information is now centrally located, reducing the need for increases in server capacity, and Allows employees to capture and share knowledge of any kind. Key Criteria for choosing Kentico In order to create a clean and intuitive interface, as well as integrate the required stand-alone system, it was necessary to use a robust, modern CMS. Kentico CMS offers a strong, built-in intranet solution that is easy to configure, customize, and tie in to external systems. The key Kentico CMS features that made everything possible are: Functionality: Kentico s built-in features and frameworks helped create a dynamic intranet site, quickly. Security: Kentico allows secure account access and role-based user management. It also allowed simple integration with Active Directory. Flexibility: Kentico s ability to easily implement Kentico modules, add new features to the site for future enhancements, and to integrate 3rd party software and associated databases. About Falcon-Software Falcon-Software understands not only their client s web needs but also their business needs, which has propelled Falcon-Software beyond customer satisfaction to loyalty that has driven their growth since With offices in Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, Toronto and Victoria, Falcon-Software offers a unique combination of e-business strategy, creative web design, and Web CMS application expertise when developing feature-rich website solutions for their clientele. Their mission is to integrate strategy with creative design and development technology delivered to their clients on-time, on-budget and exceed expectations. Falcon-Software is a Gold Certified Kentico CMS Partner offering full creative design, development, training and hosting services. We invite you to get started today, at no cost. Call us for a free Kentico CMS consultation at